


Mysteries at the Leuchtturm

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: 18th Century Gothic AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Light Angst, M/M, Mystery! Monsters! Manors! Mayhem!, Pining, gothic horror, technically it's the tail-end of the regency era so not ENTIRELY 18th century, the pastiche homage nightmare your mother warned you about
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16321205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: It has been a year since Newton Geiszler broke off his engagement to Hermann Gottlieb and locked himself away in a house by the sea. Hermann, determined to uncover the reason, pays him a visit—and perhaps discovers more than he bargained for.





	Mysteries at the Leuchtturm

**Author's Note:**

> after about two months of talking about this endlessly and saying i was going to write this: I AM FINALLY WRITING THIS...just in time for halloween too......thank u to feriowind for your endlessly awesome monsters you've drawn for this
> 
> i say 18th century, but really it's early 19th century, so all i really mean is it follows the conventions of gothic lit of that specific period

Years after the events in question, Hermann Gottlieb could not help but recall what came to pass at Leuchtturm Manor—what came to pass between him and _Newton_ —with a certain twinge of horror.

But all stories have a beginning, and this was the beginning of Hermann’s.

 

* * *

 

Hermann’s engagement to Newton Geiszler had been intense and long-standing: love, born of friendship, born of intellectual companionship and mutual admiration in the quiet autumn they spent as research partners. They had met at Hermann’s university many years prior. Newton was a scholar abroad from Germany (Hermann’s own native country), and though they initially quarreled, they fell for each other quickly and Newton had proposed before the year’s end. From then, they never parted if they could help it. On the rare occasion that Hermann would be called back to settle some matter at the Gottlieb estate, or Newton would be too caught up in his studies for their usual meetings or dinners or stolen moments, they would exchange letters to alleviate some of the monotony and, indeed, loneliness.

Hermann’s engagement to Newton Geiszler was also quite over.

Hermann saved every single letter Newton had ever sent him, bound and secured in string and stowed carefully in a drawer of his bureau. The last of them were the ones he'd packed with him and examined now. The first: Newton’s account of a manor up north on the coast, empty and disused for years, that he had designs on purchasing as their home and had gone alone to examine. The letter was full of Newton’s usual exclamations and digressions—excitement over their ever-approaching marriage, his aching desire to see Hermann again, his favorable opinion of their intended home, how long and tiresome the journey had been.

(“Two months!” he had written. “Two months, and we’ll be wed. You’ll love it here, Hermann—there’s enough room for _two_ laboratories, and our” here Hermann had blushed over the pronoun “bedchamber overlooks the sea.”)

The second: sent a month later. It was short, and perfunctory, and explained to Hermann in no uncertain terms that their engagement was dissolved and that Hermann should not attempt to contact him again.

The second was why Hermann found himself thundering along the road in his carriage on a dreadful and stormy night such as tonight. Hermann knew Newton as if Newton were an extension of himself; he knew Newton would not willingly sever from Hermann as he had, unprompted and utterly unapologetic. Hermann had spent a year in agony, imploring Newton in letter after letter to tell Hermann what he did wrong, but Newton never responded. So Hermann had been forced to resort to other methods. He had a single trunk packed and scarcely enough money to cover his expenses for a week, let alone the journey he had planned, the exact duration of which remained largely indefinite. He would—Hermann thought grimly—take as long as he needed.

The carriage suddenly came to a halt. Hermann’s immediate fear—highway robbers—was quelled when his coachman swung open the door and leaned in. The man was drenched head to foot, and Hermann could scarcely hear him over the pounding of rain on the hood when he said “Dr. Gottlieb, we can’t continue."

Hermann made a noise of displeasure. He carefully folded up Newton’s letters and slipped them into his breast pocket for preservation. “We certainly can’t turn back,” Hermann said. They’ve been journeying for far too long.

His coachman shook his head. “It looks as if there’s a town up ahead,” he near-shouted. “Perhaps we may be able to find an inn.”

Hermann nodded his acquiesce. His coachman shut the door.

 

To their luck, there _was_ an inn up ahead, and Hermann’s coachman saw to securing the horses in the stables while Hermann himself saw to lodging. It was crowded inside, the downstairs also serving as a bustling pub, and the patrons paid Hermann no mind as he shook water from his overcoat and approached the bar. “Excuse me,” he said, and the bartender (and, he assumed, the owner), a well-built man with a mustache, smiled politely. “Do you have any vacancies for tonight? The storm is quite severe, and—”

The man nodded. “Of course,” he said, “Mister…?”

“Doctor,” Hermann corrected, “Gottlieb,” and stuck out his hand. The man shook it.

“Marshal Pentecost,” the man said. Thick London accent, and military, too, as Hermann likely could have guessed; he wore no uniform, but he carried himself the same way Hermann’s father did. Hermann did have to wonder what a man of his rank was doing letting rooms in the corner of nowhere like here, but he quickly found his answer when a young woman no more than twenty appeared at Pentecost’s side, and Pentecost introduced her as “My daughter, Mako.” She would’ve been little more than a child when the wars ended. Hermann could not blame the man for moving somewhere quiet.

Once Hermann paid for a room for himself and his coachman and ordered enough food for the both of them, he found himself an empty table in the back corner of the pub. It did not afford _much_ privacy, but enough that Hermann would not have to catch the eye of or speak to anyone if he did not wish it. It was dry and warm, which was even more important, and there was a fire lit nearby in the hearth. Hermann hooked his cane on the back of his chair and shrugged off his damp coat, and nodded his thanks at a young man who introduced himself as Becket when he brought Hermann some stew.

Hermann was reaching for a spoon when a man to Hermann’s right said “‘Doctor’.” Hermann turned; the owner of the voice was a boy around Mako’s age, fair-haired and stocky. He was scratching a small bulldog behind its ears and had his eyes narrowed at Hermann. “We’ve had plenty of you lot lately.”

Hermann startled in surprise. “You have?” he said. It was foolish to assume, as Newton could certainly not be the only doctor to have traveled these parts in the recent past, but if it meant Hermann was getting close— “I’m looking,” he began, as the boy continued to regard him with mild suspicion (and Hermann could not help but wonder, if he _was_ referring to Newton, what Newton could’ve possibly done to warrant that) “for an—er—a very dear friend of mine. A doctor as well. He was investigating some property by the coast—”

“ _Geiszler_?” the boy exclaimed; conversation in the pub ceased, and all eyes turned on Hermann. Hermann shrunk back in his seat. “What do you want with _him_?”

“You know of him, then?” Hermann said. There was a hushed, nervous murmur among the patrons, and as quickly as Hermann had garnered their attention, they cast their eyes to the floorboards. Hermann cleared his throat and spoke louder. “I said, do you know of him?”

For a moment, it seemed as if no one would speak. A man finally broke the silence. “He lives in the manor just outside of town,” he said, “overlooking the sea. He’s...” he trailed off. The nervous murmur rose in the crowd once more.

“No one sees much of him,” another man cut in, the first's companion in a game of cards. “He used to pay Choi a pretty sum of money to deliver groceries up there once a month, but Choi stopped, after—well—”

“Go on,” Hermann commanded in a steady voice, though his heart raced.

“They find half-eaten animals up there. Strange skeletons. They say there’s a curse on the manor, Doctor, and that your friend brought it with him.”

_A curse? Newton?_ Hermann could laugh at the thought. Newton was eccentric, of course, brash, and a bit unorthodox in his methods, but it had nothing to do with something as romantic as supernatural forces. “Surely,” he said, “you must be mistaken. Newton—Dr. Geiszler is a good man. He’s harmless.”

“Harmless?” the boy said, sitting up sharply enough that he upset the bulldog in his lap. “He and that bloody lighthouse of his nearly cost my father his _arm_.”

“Lighthouse?” Hermann echoed with a frown. “What do you—?”

“You should stay away from him,” the first man warned, and a handful of the other patrons nodded, “if you know what’s good for you, Doctor. He’ll bring you nothing but bad luck like he’s brought the rest of us.”

Fury swelled in Hermann’s chest; he could not, _would not_ hear such accusations about the man he loved. Newton was not cursed, and he was not a harbinger of _bad luck_. He was Newton—brave, brilliant, and good-hearted Newton. Hermann stood suddenly, silverware clattering on the table with the force of it, and he quickly snagged his coat and cane. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat, “Newton isn’t—” He flexed his fingers nervously around the head of his cane, knees trembling, and then pushed madly to the front of the bar, where Pentecost stood, expression unreadable. Hermann slammed a few coins on the counter-top. “For my meal,” he said, though he hadn’t touched any of it. And then, his mind made up: “I—I won’t be needing the room, after all.”

“Dr. Gottlieb,” Pentecost began, still unreadable.

“Superstitions,” Hermann said, though his knees still trembled and his heart still pounded in his chest, “it’s all—” He ran his left hand through his hair, gone curly with rain, and shook his head. “Yes. But I will not need one of the rooms.” He would find Newton tonight, just to prove them all wrong. Newton was not cursed. Newton was...

Hermann’s coachman approached him cautiously. “Dr. Gottlieb?” he said, and Hermann fumbled with his purse and handed him a few coins. Enough for anything the journey home may require.

“Stay the night,” Hermann said. “Return back home once the storm has cleared. I will find Newton myself and send for my belongings tomorrow.”

“Dr. Gottlieb,” the coachman repeated, alarmed, “I cannot recommend—your father—”

Hermann had already turned back to Pentecost. “I thank you for your hospitality,” he said, as calmly as he could manage (for he did mean it) and then, adjusting his grip on his cane, pushed open the oak door and stepped into the night.

It was foolish of Hermann, and he knew it—the rain still fell in heavy sheets, he would surely catch cold—but he could not convince himself to pursue any alternative course. He _needed_ to see Newton. (And he imagined that Newton would admire his impulsiveness.) He could just make out a signpost on the corner of the street and he squinted at it, now, attempting to gather his bearings. Just outside of town and by the sea, the men inside had said, was where Newton’s manor rested.

Hermann felt a light touch on his shoulder, and when he turned, to his surprise, he saw young Mako. She was holding out a handful of coins. Hermann recognized it as the money from the room he did not require after all. “You’ve forgotten this,” she said.

Hermann took the money gratefully and slipped it into his pocket. “Thank you,” he said with a nod.

He expected Mako to return inside, back to the warmth and dryness of the inn, but to his surprise, she did not move, nor did she shy away from looking him in the eyes as the others had. “I did not know Dr. Geiszler well,” she said, voice hushed and conspiratorial, “but he was always kind to me when I saw him. You said he’s your friend?”

“Oh.” Hermann blinked. “Er—” Hermann supposed there was no use in hiding it. Rumor was bound to catch up eventually. “Yes. More than that. We were engaged, you see,” he confessed.

Mako looked satisfied. “Follow the straight path,” she said, pointing ahead in the dark at the direction opposite the one Hermann had nearly set off in. “That’s how you get to the manor. I followed Mr. Choi there one day. You’ll be there in an hour.”

“Thank you,” Hermann said again. With a final nod, Mako slipped back inside and Hermann was left truly alone.

 

The walk up to the Manor was long and cold, and by the latter half of it, Hermann wanted nothing more than to be sat by a fireplace in the inn with a blanket over his shoulders and, maybe, some of that stew he’d left behind. The storm had thankfully lessened somewhat, but Hermann’s clothing was soaked thoroughly and his knee ached him abominably. Were it not for the promise of seeing Newton—his handsome, brilliant, and quite absent Newton—again (how _long_ it’d been since he’d seen Newton). Hermann doubted he would’ve made it as far as he did.

Cursed. Bad luck. All superstitious nonsense, of course; Hermann knew better than anyone that hinging your reason upon anything but numbers and logic and scientific fact was pure and utter absurdity. (Still, a niggling voice in the back of his head was insistent on pointing out, logic and numbers could not explain why Newton suddenly ended their engagement, why he would not answer Hermann’s frantic queries. Perhaps the villagers—)

Lightning crackled across the inky sky above, illuminating a tall, imposing manor nestled up on rocks just ahead. It was scarcely a five-minute’s walk away. What Hermann had mistaken for the wind picking up, he now realized, was the sound of waves crashing against the cliffside. Surely this had to be Newton’s manor!

Hermann hurried along, twice nearly losing his grip on his cane and slipping on the wet rocks, but—he pushed through the rusted gate, ascended the stone staircase, raised the heavy iron knocker (carved, he saw in another flash of lightning, with some sort of twisted, nightmarish, _otherworldly_ face) and let it fall against the door of the manor with a hollow, echoing thud—Newton was there, Newton _had_ to be there—

The door creaked open a fraction, and Newton’s haggard and pale face peered out at him.

**Author's Note:**

> i gotta use my english degree for something you know


End file.
